How Long Do YOU Leave Your (T-5) Lights On For

I have a 4 bulb T5 setup and my photoperiod is a total of 12 hours long. I Bring my actinics on at 8, my day bulbs on at 9. I leave my day bulbs on for 10 hours, leaving my actinics on for one more hour. (I have an ATI combo of, Blue,white, Blue, Purple.

I just increased my photo period one more hour.

does anyone else run their t5's for 13 hours???

Thank you,

 

my lights are never really off, from 7am my actinics are on, then my 10k's kick on at 9 then shut off at 8 leaving my actinics on till 10, then frrom 10pm my moonlights are on till 7am

 

Okay, thats cool to know thank you shackman. So with my question being "Is the extra hour a big deal??" I beleieve my answer is no.

any other feedback is helpful

 

Im gonna say not really..Unless you just want to be able to look at your corals an extra hour..

naturally corals get 12 hours of light, that includes dusk and dawn lighting as well..

i run my halide for 8.5 hours and my t5s a few hours before and after along while the halide is on..

i dont see any change in my corals when i leave my t5s on for a while when people are over after the bar that wanna see everything and stuff..

 

thank you , Saints Fan

 

Im currently running 10 hours on all 6 lamps

but with 1 hour extra either side for 2 of them that are actinics

I believe that leaving just the actinics on a couple of hours extra would not be so much of an issue, and sometimes do so in order to appreciate the flourescing of corals for a bit longer

but I prefer to keep my daylights limited to 10 hours

Steve

 

4 bulbs at 10 (Blue+, GE daylight, 2 aquablue specials)
2 bulbs at 12 (both ATI blue+)

 

I run my T5s on a timer which is set at 13 hours on.

All of my lights come on at once, so what I do is open the shutters and turn on the regular room light for about an hour before the tank light comes on. To me that seems natural enough since the tank is actually getting light from the sun as it rises and gradually increases in brightness. In other words, I make the room brighter before the lights come on, so that is my ghetto version of interval lighting. I don't have a problem with algae but only because my parameters are spot on.

 

I run my dawn/dusk for 10 hours and daylights for 8 hours.

 

10.5 hours for the dusk/dawn lamps (2)
7.5 for the daylights (2)

I might try running the daylights for an hour or so longer to see if I can get some faster growth.